


Soulmates Ficlets Collection

by Asuka Kureru (Askerian)



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, mostly grimmichi tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2019-11-06 02:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17930849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru
Summary: 22. the one where it’s impossible to lie to your soulmate. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)26. the one where you have the date your soulmate will die on your wrist. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)17. the one where your soulmate’s name is on one wrist and your enemy’s name is on the other and you have no clue which is which. (Grimmjow/Ichigo, Ichigo&Rukia)8. the one where your soulmate’s first words to you are written on your body. (Grimmjow/Ichigo/Orihime)3. the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks on your bodies. (Grimmjow/Nel/Tier/Ichigo)18. the one where whenever you get a song stuck in your head, it’s because your soulmate is singing it. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)





	1. 22. the one where it’s impossible to lie to your soulmate. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)

**Author's Note:**

> [i'm still taking prompts for these on my tumblr](http://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/post/182894162810/andhungry-soulmate-au-prompts-send-a-number) if y'all wanna. >_> (not through AO3 tho. plz don't prompt me through the comments here.)
> 
> be warned that "29. the one where your soulmate’s ghost haunts you when they die" has been prompted and is now a whopping 25 PAGES AND NOT DONE AAAAAaaaaaa. aaa. sobs. i'll be posting that one separately.  
> edit: it's [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442541) and still WIP.

"What happened to your arm?" Kurosaki asks, righteous, like it's any of his business, like even after the curbstomp Grimmjow gave him last time he's still finding the gall to be disappointed it's gonna be easy.

"I threw it away" is what rises to Grimmjow's lips -- dismissive, mocking, a clear barrier of none of your fucking business, you're meat, you're _dinner_.

What comes out of them is not that. "Tousen took it off as punishment," he hears out of his own fucking mouth, and slams his teeth closed on the rest of the whole sordid affair, eyes wide in baffled horror.

Down by the ground Kurosaki is still staring at him all grave and prissy, like he didn't... Like he didn't get it, understand what just...

Like he doesn't _know_.

"If it's the best he could do, though," Grimmjow finishes, almost smooth, "that's still not gonna save you."

Nothing's gonna save Kurosaki. Love, care, mercy -- he threw them away when he got his mask and he never found them again. Coddling fuzzy relationships are for weaklings and peasants. He's a fucking _king_. Sharpening himself onto something equally sharp, though, equally relentless... Yeah, it's what he wanted anyway. Nothing has to change. _Nothing has to change_.

Kurosaki's lucky he wasn't born when Grimmjow was still gillian, or before even that. Soulmates are the ones you devour first of all, when you lose your soul.

\--

Ichigo doesn't notice because he tried to lie to Grimmjow and couldn't -- mostly he has no need to lie, not even to brag or shit-talk; the bare truth pisses Grimmjow off well enough.

But all those gritted-teeth moments of slightly-too-frank answers pile up, and so do his suspicions.

One day soon, when they're done fixing all that fallout from Yhwach and he can go to Hueco Mundo and find him again, he'll try to say "hey, I don't want to fight you" and find out what comes out.


	2. the one where you have the date your soulmate will die on your wrist. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)

Ichigo has two dates on his wrist.

One of them is almost a century and a half into the past. The other one is, even more ridiculously, seven centuries into the future.

He knows about ghosts but how the fuck do ghosts manage to die twice? Stupid. And more importantly, how do they expect him to goddamm live with it? When he meets them, he's gonna yell for at least a complete century and make them pay him back for his privacy wristband collection. Custom width gets expensive, okay.

\--

When he meets the guy who has the date Urahara threw Ichigo down a hole on his wrist, he decides maybe he won't say anything.

Because one, they're adversaries for now and _someone_ would not take it well if he mouths off, and two, Grimmjow has dates listed and barred through all the way to his elbow.


	3. the one where your soulmate’s name is on one wrist and your enemy’s name is on the other and you have no clue which is which. (Grimmjow/Ichigo, Ichigo&Rukia)

People aren't usually confused when Ichigo bares his wrists and one of his names is an ex-Espada and the other one is Kuchiki Rukia. "Not too hard to figure out which is which, eh?" Renji once asked him, teasing and envious both.

Well, sometimes Rukia does behave like his mortal enemy, but usually that's when he deserves it, so yeah, generally he agrees. They've been in sync ever since the day they met, supporting each other on the path to their common goals.

Grimmjow, meanwhile, declared his intent to murder him and parade around his corpse from the first night they met, and he hasn't mellowed out _that_ much about it. He'd be bored if he managed it and they both know it, but he still doesn't make a mystery of it.

The confusion is when people find out which of the two of them he sleeps with.

"Platonic soulmates are a thing," Rukia says, easy, whenever Ichigo feels too odd, too abnormal with his lip bleeding from a fist and his shoulders covered in bite marks, "so why _wouldn't_ someone have a sexual nemesis?"

And Grimmjow says, "who the fuck cares _how_ you're mine," and bites him again, and Ichigo is the one who punches out first.


	4. the one where your soulmate’s first words to you are written on your body. (Grimmjow/Ichigo/Orihime)

Orihime has two soulmarks.

The first one curls around the left side of her ribs. "Tatsuki's friend, right?" It's a great relief to her when she's alone with her bullies to know that she will have a friend, one day -- probably a great friend if they'll lead her to her soulmate. She's almost more grateful for the promise of this Tatsuki than for the promise of his (her?) existence.

She has another mark, after all. It's the one everyone glimpses first, past the permanent scarves around her throat. "Hey, woman. Fix up one more spot." A vulgar way of talking -- a vulgar man, and her mother was a vulgar woman so she doesn't like the resemblance, and the placement is so impolitely obvious.

She likes the Tatsuki mark better. Even if she tries to tell herself that the other one was trusting her to fix something, and maybe it was important. Maybe it wasn't something she broke or messed up herself. Maybe that.

She looks forward to it less, either way -- until Tatsuki-chan's childhood friend who's in their class now says her other words, and doesn't seem to recognize hers in return even a little bit.

\--

Ichigo has two soulmarks.

One is fucking incomprehensible, and he spends his whole childhood looking for the idiot kid roleplaying it out, or the wannabe tough teenager trying to beat him up, because it's not something that makes any sense for an adult to be saying. It crosses his stomach and chest in a diagonal slash of angry scrawling; "Hey, you underestimating me, Shinigami? I don't feel like killing you quite yet."

The other one is "Save him! You've got to save him!" and it takes up his whole left palm. The letters are round and cute but jagged like a scream. He hates looking at it. He feels like he's failed, and it hasn't even happened yet.

He hates it even more when the girl's brother dies in his father's clinic and she says nothing more.

He cannot bring himself to talk to her at all.

When they meet again he only recognizes her afterwards -- he said hello, careless, and she looked at him smiling all weird and frozen and said, _hi, it's super-duper cool to meet you!_ and he thought she was odd -- cute, but odd, and he went on to squabble with Tatsuki. And then, oh. Wait.

She never does say anything about it, and then he glimpses the tops of words on her throat and they don't match his even a little bit; so he tries to tell himself it was a dud. With the shit life he leads it's almost a guarantee he'll hear someone beg for rescue again.

\--

Grimmjow has two soulmarks. Before he died he had two soul marks, too, but then they hid under white armor and his aggressive forgetting for a few centuries; he only got them back when he became arrancar. He's pretty sure they used to say something different.

Before he died everybody _just knew_ that sometimes the words just don't ever come true and aren't a guarantee. Now he knows that's bullshit. The words might change, but you _are_ gonna say them. ‘Course you might say them as a freshly turned hollow to your latest snack.

They're just decoration.

On the inside of his left arm, just past the armpit, is a single round-edged " _why?_ ". He can't even count the number of people he devoured who asked him that one. Why? Because you're food, and I'm hungry. Next.

The second one he hears with his arm still coated in shinigami blood -- the other shinigami staring up at him in a totally new sort of unfeigned horror from two seconds earlier when he was trying to talk himself into standing his ground.

"You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me," he says, like he's reading straight from the words on display between Grimmjow's waistband and his open jacket, down the right side of his stomach like dripping blood.

Grimmjow beats him into the ground. Grimmjow bares his teeth and hits him, and hits him, no swords, no flashy powers, just his fists. How dare he. It changes fucking nothing.

It changes everything.

Not before the woman he cowed but couldn't break kneels before his broken and exhausted-empty body and tugs the high collar of her dress down to let him see.


	5. the one where you and your soulmate have matching marks on your bodies. (Grimmjow/Nel/Tier/Ichigo)

Grimmjow and his fraccion are amongst the first to go through the change. Encouraged to join up, or press-ganged, whatever, it's survival and power, they'll live with it. Grimmjow is the only one who doesn't have trouble with distances relative to the size of his body, but the bipedal thing is still new. Or... old. Very old. He's kind of busy with it for the first few hours.

Gin hands them a mirror and laughs at them as D-Roy grimaces at his reflection, as Yylfordt preens at his own face. Grimmjow looks himself up and down. Eh, not bad. Okay.

Nakeem is the one who touches his spine, between his shoulder blades, and asks if it was there the first time around.

Grimmjow doesn't remember being human, so the fuck does he know. Gin doesn't have a second mirror at hand, so in the end it's Shawlong who describes it for him -- some kind of pointy half-oval with a panther and goat rearing on their hind legs face to face, and a crown of pointed teeth on top.

"Eh. Doesn't ring a bell." He forgets about it. Edrad has a winged pear on his pectoral. It's more worth jeering at.

\--

The first time he sees his mark with his own eyes is when Nelliel tu Odelschwanck rises, remade and bare, from under Aizen's hand.

It rises from her pubis, the crown of teeth almost skimming her navel. He doesn't say anything.

\--

The second time is when Tier Harribel rises in turn. It's on the outside of her left shoulder. Ah, the crown is made of _shark_ teeth. The ibex goat and panther were obvious but he was wondering what the fuck the crown referenced. Because if it's a _king_ 's crown then like fuck he wants to share it with anyone, soulmate or not. Only space for one at the top.

Aizen has seen both girls', and he asks them, unctuous and friendly, if they feel like they may become especially close. Harribel and Odelschwanck exchange wary looks; cold as a desert night, Harribel says she doesn't see why. Soulmates are for the living and those who still have a heart.

Grimmjow doesn't bring his up to either of them, not there and not afterwards. All three of them know that showing a single sign of an alliance stronger than their allegiance to Aizen will mean their death.

(When Odelschwanck disappears without a trace Grimmjow watches Gilga strut around, and wonders if he or Harribel will get to him first. He'll have to get stronger first, but that was the goal from the start. He doesn't feel especially bound to Odelschwanck, but she was more his than she was Gilga's.)

\--

The third time he sees his mark on someone else (and how the _fuck,_ how many of these assholes _are_ there, is he mated to _an entire platoon_ ) is in Soul Society, the 'fuck off, Yhwach' anniversary party.

There's a pool. And there's Nelliel in her bathing suit giggling like she does for no one but one man, her mark showing matched to the one over the heart of Ichigo "Godslayer" Kurosaki and how in _Hell_ did he miss it considering how often the guy gets his clothes fucking _shredded what the fuck_.

"I was wondering who the shield was for," Tier says idly beside him, and undoes the knot of the beach shawl around her hips.

"It was a fucking _shield?_ " Grimmjow hisses after her, glaring helplessly as the queen of Hueco Mundo moves to abandon him on his deck chair, and twists his head around to try to glimpse his own back.

"Heraldry, Grimmjow. Heraldry."

" _Ugh_."

(He never did tell Nelliel or Tier about his mark, they never talked about it -- they just settled into being the three rulers of Hueco Mundo, Nelliel and him supporting Tier from underneath -- but the look Tier aims at him over her bare, marked shoulder is pretty damn clear on how the panther thing was real goddamned transparent.)

(He still doesn't join them in the pool until he gets so annoyed at Kurosaki's flustered-awestruck babble at Tier that he needs to divebomb him to the bottom and drown him a little. The resultant fight pierces the lining and they all end up dumped out in the mud of Kuchiki's prissy garden. Worth it.)


	6. the one where whenever you get a song stuck in your head, it’s because your soulmate is singing it. (Grimmjow/Ichigo)

By the time he's twelve Ichigo has figured out he either 1. doesn't have a soulmate. 2. they're not born yet, or 3. they were born deaf.

He has never, ever had a song appear in his head, whether he knows it or not. Every time he has a song in there it's because he's the one singing it, and he can stop whenever he wants. He's pretty sure it's all from inside him.

Anyway 1 can't happen, he is told, so it's either 2 or 3.

If it's 3 his songs are the only things his soulmate is ever going to hear in their life, so he starts making sure he's singing all the time. Varied things -- he wants his soulmate to discover a lot of things, not be stuck with his latest obsession -- but not too advanced for his age either in case it's 2 and his soulmate is currently two year old or something. He's responsible for them, in that case.

It's a bit of an accident when Tatsuki snickers through their English lesson and then makes him translate Lily Allen's Fuck You.

It's cheerful and catchy and really girly and the most shockingly rude thing Kurosaki Ichigo, age twelve, has heard an adult say so far. He's singing the chorus the very next day. Just once, guiltily.

A week later he's trying to find good lullabies in case his soulmate is one year old or even younger -- something soothing, maybe about kittens.

 ** _FUCK_** _you_ , lilts through his head, a man's voice that's nothing like Lily Allen's clear soprano. _Fuck you very, **very** much, **fuuuck** you~_

Ichigo's mouth gapes for the whole and entire time it takes his soulmate to run through seven repetitions of the chorus.

Then he goes tearing through the house for his dad for some kind of song that he can use to ask "are you really here".

It turns out they are, and they're not a toddler. Asking if they're deaf is harder.

Ichigo gets to hear the _fuck you_ song a lot.

It gets less funny after a while. 

\--

From age thirteen to fourteen he doesn't sing much. He still listens to lots of music, but he's hurt and disgruntled enough to stop himself singing along. (Maybe it was his fault. He was too annoying. Overbearing. He has a stupid voice.) His soulmate doesn't really sing back. Sometimes Ichigo feels as if someone is humming a few bars of something he used to listen to but it never lasts long enough to make sure. It's never songs he doesn't already know.

\--

Around fourteen he discovers angry hard rock and heavy metal. Also the therapeutic effects of screaming along to angry hard rock and heavy metal.

Sometimes he hears echoes.

\--

Suddenly he's a shinigami, and suddenly he's half-hollow, and suddenly -- okay, a bit less suddenly -- he's a fullbringer, and then he's a quincy on top. He has friends everywhere and longstanding enemies who are almost like friends, and friends who would rather he call them allies and also not use their first names, and life gets pretty okay. His soulmate wants nothing to do with him, well, whatever. It's cool. He's not alone.

\--

Twenty-two and the Seireitei is setting up a big week in honor of Five Years of Shinigami-Arrancar Relations And We Haven't Murdered Each Other Yet, Yay.

Ichigo is invited. Ichigo drinks a little, and spars a lot (not always willingly) and is kept so busy with backslaps and remember-whens and surprise attacks it takes him a little while to realize that _Harribel's girls_ asked him to play-fight and Grimmjow _didn't_.

It's not even like they haven't seen each other around. It just. Grimmjow didn't approach him at all. Just watched him casually with his shoulders all loose and relaxed, like for once he was feeling chill with life and the universe.

He doesn't approach until Urahara drags Ichigo in by the neck for Karaoke Night, which is. Uh. Yeah. Nope.

"Nope," Ichigo says, and goes to walk out.

" _I~ can't decide_ ," Grimmjow purrs mockingly _right in his ear_ except he's _still at the other end of the room_ , " _whether you should live or die_ ~"

Ichigo has him by the collar and is dragging him out through the nearest window in the next second.

They have their spar after all.

It's not really a friendly one.

\--

"Figured it out a while back."

"How the _fuck_ \-- it's not like I was singing around you!"

"Kurosaki... The first time I heard your voice I was in the middle of murdering myself some dinner when someone started going _wah, wah, little train_ except even stupider-sounding. I've heard your voice a _lot_ , is what I'm saying. Incidentally thanks for not murdering me via your puberty squeaks."

Ichigo wipes blood off his lip and turns his back stiffly. He wishes his shihakusho had pockets to stuff his hands into. He's a young adult now, with a good life and tons of people who love him. It's still hard not to feel like shit. Like a rejected kid who was just too annoying, sounded too lame to be wanted back.

The first time they met, did Grimmjow already know? And try to kill him anyway? The second time? The third? Surely he had it figured out by then. It never stopped him.

And then against Yhwach. Yeah no, just here to kill some Quincies and remind you I'm still gonna kill you at some point. Okay good talk, bye.

It really sucks.

"Why now," he forces out. "Why not any time before now. You could have opened a garganta any time you wanted, so why _bother_. Because you wanted to karaoke in peace and you had to get it out of the way first?"

Grimmjow steps closer until he's standing one step behind him, at his shoulder. Ichigo stares stubbornly ahead. They're on a roof somewhere. Some kind of palace, now a little singed.

"We don't really have songs unless we create them," he says casually. "Or any kind of culture, really. Harribel's been on our cases about it. Wants us spinning, painting, throwing pots, what the fuck ever. Says Las Noches is just too depressing to make life actually enjoyable."

"...Huh."

"Some guys have started making pretty good stained glass windows." He gives a shrug, hands in pockets; his arm almost brushes Ichigo's. He can feel the body warmth even though they don't touch. "We do have a shit-ton of sand."

"Mmh."

"Anyway." He looks away, weight shifting to his heels and then back. "You shoved so much music between my ears, now it's trying to come back out."

Ichigo can't help blinking. He did not expect that. He's not sure what he expected but definitely not that. "You -- you're feeling _inspired_ , is what you mean?"

Huh. A hollow that creates. That's... New. That's good. Hopeful. Arrancars are so much more than mere monsters anyway and it's. It's fair, it's good if they're starting to regain beauty and fun that aren't born of murder and constant fear for their lives.

"Yeah," Grimmjow admits diffidently. "Been making little songs already, still not great with shit to say to them. But I think I got one."

"And I was gonna find out anyway," Ichigo finishes, a little dispirited. It's... well, it's not... It probably would have hurt more to find out in five more years as he dropped by the Seireitei or Las Noches and someone was humming Grimmjow's song.

Grimmjow backhands him in the meat of his shoulder with an annoyed huff. Ichigo startles, turns to stare at him. Grimmjow is glowering at him, jaw tight and nose scrunched up a little.

"And you were gonna hear it first anyway, and then I thought I actually didn't fucking mind. But if you don't wanna then I guess I'll just practice while you're asleep. Or hey," he adds with an unfriendly growl, "I can knock you out."

Ichigo figures out, staring at him, that he was actually being fairly approachable earlier, mostly noticeable now that he's retreating like a hedgehog. Ichigo reaches out to catch his sleeve without a thought.

"No, I -- you mean, now? ... To me, directly?"

Grimmjow says nothing for a good long while, staring down at his hand and not knocking it away. The cloth is still shredded from an earlier attack. 

"Why the fuck not," he says eventually, voice rough, a little choked up. Ichigo shivers.

Steps a little closer.

It's... probably too close, for a hollow who doesn't know very much about trust and affection and soulmates, if he goes by the tension in Grimmjow's shoulders.

They stand in awkward silence in each other's body heat, staring at each other -- they're almost of a height now -- and then Grimmjow snorts, shakes himself.

"Let's sit down. And tell me if someone comes close," he adds, rough and almost angry, "it ain't for them."

"No," Ichigo replies, teasing, already starting to smile, "it's for _me_. And they say romance is dead -- oh wait, _you_ are dead, never mind, move along."

"Ugh, fuck you."

He's still chuckling when he settles down on the chimney, his shoulder touching Grimmjow's as they both face different directions. He figures the guy doesn't want him to watch his face as he sings. That'd probably be too much. It would be too much for Ichigo too. God, his face is prickling-hot; he can't stop grinning.

It's probably going to be baby's first death metal, complete with tomcat screams. He can't wait.

\--

It's gorgeous, and slow, and sad, and a lot like a desert at night even though the lyrics said nothing about any of that.

It's about going to sleep beside someone who's gonna make sure you wake up.

"Grimmjow," he can't resist saying, because Grimmjow is not the only asshole in this soulmateship, "it was a _lullaby_."

He has to hum it back for a whole hour in all its tenderness and its melancholy before Grimmjow stops sulking and agrees to sing it again.


End file.
